The Wonderful World of Wikis!

 

Introduction of presenter:

 

Intro to Blogs and Wikis

 

Differences between wiki providers

wikispaces: + Creative Commons License, cheaper upgrades, statistics    - less control over visual aspects

pbWiki: + 'easier' to use, more media friendly, plugins, bulk upload of users      - higher subscription upgrade costs

 

Free wikis generally don't give you great control over individual user access rights. Upgrades usually allow the admin to lock certain pages, have different levels of access rights.

 

 

Creating your wiki!

Create pbwiki for classroom

    Free vs Pay

    Version 1 vs version 2

Version 1 pbWikis had the ability to have a public key. All users would still have the same 'administrator' rights, but they wouldn't have to have a working email address to login. (Just make sure you don't check 'send email'.)

 

Version 2 pbWikis did away with the public key to get into compliance with Federal Laws among other things. It's not ideal by any means, but the wiki features may outweigh the loss of the public key. 

 

 

 

Create a free version 2 wiki with non-school email

 

Using pbWiki, Create a wiki.

 

 

Choose a wiki name that you can live with for more than one

year if you wish. You will not be able to change the name of the wiki's website address.

 

Click 'Create My Wiki' and if the wiki name hasn't already been taken, it becomes your new website.

 

 

If the website is available, you will then be able to choose any pay features. If you want a free wiki, just click 'No thanks...'

 

 

 

Share your wiki with your school and parents by making it 'public'.  Private wikis can be difficult since everyone has to be invited or given access just to view it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This screenshot comes from pbWiki. The version 2 wiki gives you a sidebar and other features down the right side. This can be visible or invisible by clicking the little black triangle in the top right corner of the text window (by 'Create a New Page').

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 'Sidebar' section can be fully edited to allow for shortcuts and quick-access links.

 

 

 

 

Edit the page- remove their content

    Make homepage with links to:  (cut and paste examples)

        Classroom rules

        Daily schedule

        Book report outline and products

        Student work sample pages

        Science- Weather Study page

        Teacher contact link (show different links)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When viewing a page that has links created, but the page the links point to hasn't been created yet, the links are underlined in red dashes. Clicking the links will let an editor establish a link and create the new page.  *Warning* Do not rename the Page Name when creating the page. The new page and the link must have the same 'Page Name' for the connection to be complete.

 

Create links and each of the new pages.

 

 

Formatting pages or site design

    Settings: skins

    Editing toolbar

 

Wiki Information block at the bottom of the page

    Show all pages will show a list of all pages created in this wiki.  If each student in your 3 blocks of 30 creates 2 pages, then you are suddenly looking at a list of 180 pages in your wiki directory. Not generally a problem, but something to be aware of.

 

 

 

 

Edit the SideBar

    Floating palette

    Remove pages

    Edit SideBar- What kind of information do you want floating beside all of your classroom wiki pages?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inserting Graphics and Documents

Using the 'Images and files' tab on the right of the window, Browse to find your media, select it and then click the Upload button.  The media will be added to your file storage space on pbWiki.  Place the curser where you wish to put the media and the click the media where it is listed under the Upload button.

 

Image files can be resized in the Edit window. Document files (.doc, .pdf, etc) will show as a small icon and a link. Clicking the link will download the file to the user's computer.

 

For practice, create a weather page link on your homepage. Link to it and create some text about today's weather. Copy a graphic from the internet and upload it to your site.  Get some experience placing graphics on your page.

 

 

Bubbleshare.com is one way to post multiple photos of classroom events onto the wiki without taking up any file storage space. Create an account and upload some example photos from Google into an album.  When done editing the album, click 'Blog Album'. Choose the type of Bubbleshare you wish to show and copy the html code below it.  Now, return to editing your wiki. Place the cursor where you want the show to be. Click 'Insert Plugin', PBWiki Magic, and then select HTML. Paste the HTML code from Bubbleshare into the box and click preview. You will see a green plugin box on your wiki page until you save the page. Then your photos will show up.

 

 

How Do I Get My Students On?

You have started creating a fantastic online resource for your classroom. Yet, the reason the wiki is so powerful is because many users can collaboratively edit the pages. How do you get students logged in?

 

Most 'free' wikis become much more powerful once you pay for an upgrade. Upgrades often allow for different user or access levels. Your free pbWiki only has one access level and that is 'administrator'. Technically, anyone with that kind of access could delete the entire site. For that reason, student accountability and trust must be built before giving out that access.  Some teachers will have a wiki for year-long important resources and second wiki that would have write access for student projects.

 

One strategy that can be used is to have the teacher use a free email service (yahoo.com) to setup the student wiki. Students won't have access to email but will have a valid email address to use to login. They will have to learn to take turns editing shared pages and to be respectful when requesting lockouts.

 

Another useful strategy is to have the teacher set up the account with his/her own email.  But, use a second email, a classroom Yahoo.com account for example, and have the students login using that. They won't have the password to use it for actual email, but the pbwiki login can be verified and that account can have just write privilges and no admin rights.

 

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Rosters:

 

July 28 - Fulmore Middle School

Rachael Becker, Jeffrey Cates,  Yvonne Fuller, Barbara Javors,  Sonja Jimenez, Holly Kofod, Leigh Lunsford, Sean Mahan, Heather Smith, Rachel Smith, Todd Taylor, Jeanette Wode

 

 

July 29 - Fulmore Middle School

Margaret Bachicha, Andrea Beane, Lucretia Beard,  Christopher Bryson, Terina Conley, Pamela Guynes, Maria Hoban, Susan Hyde, Kristie Lensing, Cynthia Marrs, Madelyn Reiner, Donna Stock